Tahoe Truckee Region History Articles

California bans affirmative action in college admissions, but two pending Supreme Court decisions may go further than the current state law, which was passed as Prop 209 in 1996. Here’s what that could mean for the state.

The nonprofit Highway 50 Association is holding its 74th annual reenactment of the Great Western Migration through June 10.

California is unwinding the prison-building boom of the 1980s and 1990s. The cuts are falling on small towns that banked on government jobs to anchor their communities.

More than 4 percent of death penalty convicts have been wrongfully convicted, data shows. But courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have failed to provide protections for the innocent facing death at the hands of the state.

The death penalty remains legal in California, but Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium on executions in 2019. Will capital punishment end in the state? Here’s what’s happening.

Motorists often take Interstate 80 for granted, the year-round, trans-Sierra highway that crosses the mountain range at Donner Pass, except of course when it’s shut down for hours or days by winter storms. It is a quick link between markedly …

The California Supreme Court has kept the state at the forefront of legal issues surrounding abortion, the death penalty and same-sex marriage, starting in its earliest days in the Gold Rush era.

Comics may have been born in New York, but they came of age in California. And there’s more to the story than San Francisco comix.

Almost one million California residents are forced to drink from contaminated water supplies, or pay for bottled water. Economic inequality makes the crisis worse. What is the state doing to fix it?

The Golden State has masqueraded as everything from the Sahara Desert to the Swiss Alps. But which films best capture the real California?

Today in the Tahoe Sierra, a region where potent winter storms generate major impacts to travel and safety, we can obtain accurate weather forecasts from various sources at a moment’s notice. Before the advent of personal computers and smart phones …

Back-to-back monster winters (1867 and 1868) paralyzed railroad construction over Donner Pass. During the winter of 1866-67, 44 storms of varying intensity dumped nearly 45 feet of snow on the region. Central Pacific Railroad’s (CPRR) Chinese immigrant workforce pushed the …

In 1862, against stiff resistance from his Cabinet, President Abraham Lincoln determined that his administration could fight a costly war against pro-slavery Southern states, while simultaneously building the nation’s First Transcontinental Railroad, setting nearly 2,000 miles of train track across …

Shopping malls revolutionized how Americans shopped, socialized, and lived. Now, malls face an uncertain future. How did the dream of a new town square go so wrong?

America has become a mostly suburban country, and California is known for its sprawling ’burbs. But what is a suburb? It turns out California may not be as suburban as people believe.

Silicon Valley has been hit with repeated boom and bust cycles throughout its history, and layoffs are sweeping the tech industry in 2023. Here's why the Valley will survive the latest downturn, as it has all the others.

Dianne Feinstein, California's longtime senior U.S. Senator, has announced she will end a legendary career in public life that began in 1961 and took off amidst the turbulent, violent era of San Francisco in the 1970s.

Black History Month provides an opportunity to remember the achievements of African Americans who fought for equality in the Golden State.

2022 was a year that needed a lot of explaining. And California Local was there. Here are our 10 most important explanatory journalism stories from the year gone by, from immigration to cryptocurrency to wealth inequality and more.

From its early days of hard-charging, Jewish immigrant moguls to today's domination by megacorporations, here's how Hollywood continues to hold its place as one of California's most important industries.